


(love you like) water and salt

by orphan_account



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Also no one dies there is no literal killing, Future Fic, Gen, M/M, One-Sided Love, Sadness, Sorry Not Sorry, and big sisters will literally kill for their little brothers, idk if you have siblings but, s'true, she's his big sister and he's her little brother, victuuri is really causal on the side btw, yuri & mila is friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 21:38:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10558106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “Shit, I fucking love you so much.” He doesn’t mean to say it, not leaned in so close, not with a ghost of a kiss on the shell of Otabek's ear.It’s just that Otabek had smiled that real smile, that one that Yuri hadn’t seen in so long because, between Otabek not making the podium last year and then getting injured and not being on circuit this season, it’s been ages.But Otabek had laughed, just straight up laughed, at Yuri’s story of a fan meet and greet banquet and a very drunk Yuri’s Angel giving him a cup fucking smeared with her lipstick and telling him to ‘call me sometime, babe’ even though the lipstick number had like three extra digits and one was neither letter nor number and her friend was standing behind her looking like she wanted to die like absolutely actually die and Yuri had exactly memorized the friend's face because it was the fucking funniest thing, look, take a picture and use it at my fucking funeral as he mimics it and Otabek had started laughing clear and high, his eyes crinkling up like cotton held to flame and Yuri hadn’t meant to say it, not like that and-- fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.





	

**Author's Note:**

> future ficcccc.
> 
> my mother always told me that the we think our happiness small when we have it, and only realize how large it was when we lose it. in other words, i have always thought that all happy stories must be balanced out, or they were never happy stories in the first place, really. i was clearly a happy child.

“Shit, I fucking love you so much.” He doesn’t mean to say it, not leaned in so close, not with a ghost of a kiss on the shell of Otabek's ear.

It’s just that Otabek had smiled that real smile, that one that Yuri hadn’t seen in so long because, between Otabek not making the podium last year and then getting injured and not being on circuit this season, it’s been ages.  

But Otabek had laughed, just straight up laughed, at Yuri’s story of a fan meet and greet banquet and a very drunk Yuri’s Angel giving him a cup fucking smeared with her lipstick and telling him to ‘call me sometime, babe’ even though the lipstick number had like three extra digits and one was neither letter nor number and her friend was standing behind her looking like she wanted to _die_  like  _absolutely actually die_ and Yuri had exactly memorized the friend's face because it was _the fucking_   _funniest thing, look, take a picture and use it at my fucking funeral_  as he mimics it and Otabek had started laughing clear and high, his eyes crinkling up like cotton held to flame and Yuri hadn’t meant to say it, not like that and--  _fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck._

Otabek’s eyes widen, just ever so slightly, and he stiffens up and away, just enough that Yuri knows like a swoop in his stomach, like the end of the world, like getting his throat slit.

 _Oh no_ , Yuri thinks, _oh oh oh,_ and then again,  _oh no._

Yuri’s whole heart is outside of his body, wrapped up in the way Otabek is looking at him and suddenly all the sake goes exactly to Yuri’s head and he can’t think, he can’t breath, he can’t even move, because Otabek is looking at him, and Yuri wants to drown in the mud of his eyes, and Otabek’s mouth is just so slightly open, the way he is breathing sounds like snow falling, and  _oh no, oh no, oh no_.

Yuri wants to scream. He pinches his lips, but the sound claws at his throat with bird-like talons and he struggles to keep his mouth shut against the feathers and claws beating in his mouth, fighting for escape, scratching his tongue and the roof of his mouth raw.

 “Yuri, I.  You don’t mean? Do you mean…?” Otabek voice trails, tilting his head just slightly, looking so confused and desperate, like he knew he misheard and _go with that,_ Yuri’s brain hisses desperately, _go with that, go with that, go with that._

He’s drunk, Yuri decides. (He's not) They’ve drunk too much in celebration of Yuri being of age to drink in Japan, completely ignoring the fact that he’s been drinking for ages in Russia. The sake is almost sweet; it leaves the faintest taste in his mouth like the grilled onigiri Yuuri’s mother made them for breakfast and they have just drank too much and too quickly after getting out of the onsen and _that's all, that's all, that's fucking all._

He doesn’t want to take it back. He wants to have never said it. (Not like this, he wasn't supposed to say it like this). How can he want two completely incompatible things? 

“Yuri.” Otabek’s brow furrows and there it is again, that feeling like someone is eating Yuri's heart raw. “I’m sor--” 

_\--oh no oh no oh no oh no--_

“I’m drunk,” Yuri says too quickly,  cutting Otabek off, “sorry, sorry, drunk, drunk, drunk, I do love you, I do, I do, of course, you’re my best friend," he coos, "that’s all I mean, I’m, it’s…” He slurs the last bit on purpose, easy as counting to three. The room is spinning.

“Mm.” Otabek says, which means ‘not entirely true’ and ‘tell me the truth’ and ‘Yuri, I’m sorry’ all wrapped up into one little sound. 

“Drink some more,” Yuri pours too eagerly, splashing the heated sake and Otabek pulls his hand back, flinching ever so slightly, and “sorry, sorry, fuck, shit, I’m sorry, fuck.” The words tumble out of his mouth like marbles and spill around the room in the inn, rolling into all the corners.  Everything is so bright and cheery and Yuri really does want to scream now. “Fuck.” That one is a little too loud; it is a scream.

“Okay, okay.” Otabek is calm, wiping the table, wiping his hand, taking the bottle from Yuri and putting it down. It clinks, the only sound in the room.

Victor and Yuuri are looking over at them, silent, the blush of alcohol on their cheeks, Victor's hair still wet from the onsen, and Yuri furiously stares at the table, wills his breathing to slow and his heart to calm down.

“Is everything okay?” Yuuri asks, because of course he does, and Yuri glances over to see them looking at him with those twin concerned looks, Yuuri’s so open and honest, like clear skies after rain; Victor’s dark like the sky right before a thunderstorm, cloud packed and threatening. Yuri can’t find his voice.  They're a rainstorm together, they are a force of nature, and he's so desperately and quietly jealous of the way their hands fit together just so.  Like fucking puzzle pieces, like a fucking romance movie, like a fucking top 40 hit.  It's a longing inside his chest like hollow hunger, like watching someone else land a jump he can't do.  It's envy strong enough to send Yuri to confession and he hates it and hates that he loves nothing like the sight of them together because it's like God rolled down from the heavens and is quietly pointing saying  _here, look, things like this, love this good, it exists, you just have to fight for it._

“We're fine.” Otabek answers quietly. There is a long pause.

“Yura,” says Victor, and Victor knows that everything's wrong, or he wouldn’t have called him Yura, wouldn't have that lilt in his voice like he's going to check with Yuri quietly in Russian instead of English.  Victor should have called him Yurio, like he always does in Hasetsu, a relic of simple times past and _fuck fuck fuck._

The silence drags like nails down Yuri's back.

“My fucking head hurts.” Yuri snaps at all of them, “I just need some air, jesus.” He leaves without looking back. It takes all of his effort not to run. (He doesn’t quite manage it.)  It’s brisk outside, not freezing, but brisk.  He goes until the inn is not in sight, and then fumbles for his phone, pulls it out in the dim light of the street lamp.

 

 _Y: baba help_

 

The response is nearly instantaneous.

 

_M: what’s wrong, my sweet little angel boy~~~_

_Y: help_

_M: my poor sweet kitten, what did you do?_

_M: is it scandalous_  

 

He doesn’t respond. He can’t respond. She waits, and then--

 

_M: omg is it super scandalous_

He’s going to cry. He can feel it, a pressure behind his eyes; he hasn’t cried in months (years?), his mind goes blank.  His chest hurts, like when he cracked his ribs and even breathing, even _just breathing_ , was a trial.  (Otabek had brought him soup and books on tape that sent him straight to sleep, which was good because everyone else had brought him things that made him laugh or talk or breathe and it all hurt).  He tries not to think about Otabek. It is difficult to get the letters in the correct order, as he types. 

_Y: mila_

_M: whats wrong_

 

He makes a keening sound.  What's wrong seems much too big a question to answer, right now.

 

_M: yuri?_

_M: yura??_

_M: yura fucking_

_M: respond_

_Y: mila. please. shit. baba._

The letters blurring on the screen are because he’s drunk, he tells himself, angrily wiping away the tear that has fallen. (He's not). He's tipsy, his mouth loosened, but not drunk. To not even be able to blame it on that threatens to break his heart all over. He sniffs into the cold air.

Otabek has been his friend, one of his closest friends, one of his _only_ friends, for five fucking years, five _fucking_  years, and Yuri has managed to ruin it all in about five fucking seconds.

Mila calls within seconds of his last text, because of course she does, because she’s Mila and Yuri can always always _always_ count on her, since he was a little kid and he came to St. Petersburg to train under Yakov and everything was fucking scary and loud and big and different, no matter how much he pretended it wasn’t.

“Kiddo?”

“Baba, help.” He chokes on the words. He doesn’t mean to sound as desperate as he does, he doesn’t mean for his voice to break at the end; he’s twenty years old and he’s about to cry in the middle of fucking nowhere Japan like he’s Pork Cutlet’s ghost of Christmas past.

“Oh Yura,” He must sound worse than he realizes because everything changes in her voice. “Oh sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

“Mila.” He manages and then he breaks down.

“Oh sweetheart, oh sweetheart,” she says over and over and over, as he tells her what he said and the way Otabek looked at him and the start of the words _I’m sorry_ and how he’s pretty sure that he had the right idea back when he was younger when he decided to just never really be friends with anyone, that had been the right thing to do, and he should have never let anyone get this close because everything hurts, everything _hurts,_ and he can't make it stop.   

She waits until he calms down a little, making soothing sounds as she listens to him breathe in and out, the way he's seen Yuuri do when the panic gets overwhelming.  In through the nose, and hold, and out through the mouth.  It hurts.

“You have to go back, sweetheart, you have to ask him, okay.” Her voice is calming, like he’s sitting at the bottom of a lake, looking up at ripples on the surface. “You have to actually talk to him. And then you call me. Then you call me again. When you know for sure.”

He nods, remembers she can’t see, says ‘yeah’, into the phone and hates how small his voice is. They sit in silence for a while.  Mila is a small fortress, he thinks, that he can always run to.  No matter that he would never tell her that, not in so many words. He doesn't have to.  She already knows, of course.  

“Okay.” He says, when the world is spinning less. “Okay.”  He straightens his back, stands up on the sidewalk, draws in a deep breath, sets his shoulders and cracks his neck.  He is not so small, has never been so small, to fall to this.  He just wishes it didn't feel like someone has stuck their nails into his heart and is twisting.  "Okay."  He says again.  His voice sounds better, slightly ragged, but more like himself.  Mila can hear it too because she says--

“You fucking call me later, Yura.”

“I fucking will.”

The barest of grins, he can feel the teeth in her smile from Japan.   _Get off of me_ , he tells her when she drapes herself over him, when she teases him, but only after he lets her hug him properly.   

He does not have to go far, to find Otabek again.  Otabek is waiting outside of the front gate to the inn, looking at him with calm eyes, holding out his arms for a hug that is no different than all of their hugs before.  Except that it is sadder, like drinking ice water too fast, the hug makes Yuri's entire body feel empty and his stomach hollow.  He already knows.  

 “Yuri.” Otabek says, and Yuri is so grateful he doesn’t call him Yura because every bit of strength he has pulled out of the very marrow of his bones would have turned to ash in his mouth.

He tightens his hands in Otabek’s sweater.  It scratches the palms of his hands and feels like home.  He is not sure he will be allowed to do this again; he is not sure he will allow himself to.

“I meant it.” He whispers, and it takes all of his heart and most of his strength to say it, to put it out there into the night. “I meant it.  I love you.”  The words hang for the second in the air, like dizzying glass globes, like Christmas tree ornaments of spun glass, and then they crash to the ground. 

Otabek whispers into his hair, a stream of words, so many words for Otabek, but they all say the same thing and the same thing is horrible,  _I do love you, but not like that, oh Yuri, I’m sorry, you’re my best friend, Yuri._

“We should talk about this tomorrow,” Yuri manages “with less alcohol in our systems.”  He sets his teeth on edge. 

More alcohol sounds like the ideal solution, right now, but he has never backed down from anything in his entire fucking life and he’s not about to start now, not about to start getting drunk to avoid things now.  If he can face gold medal routines and bad falls and losing when it matters by himself, than he can face this with the same arrogant tilt to his head. (He hasn't been alone for ages, he realizes, but he doesn't let himself dwell on that.)  He grimaces.  He is glad his hair is long, and down, and his bangs fall across one of his eyes.  It's less of a chance that Otabek will be able to read him when he pulls back. (Otabek can always read him, that's why Yuri loves him.)  

Yuri pulls away and manages a smile that probably looks like he is someone who has never smiled before, but has learned what they are supposed to look like from books. He says something, something about bed, something about sleeping, something about tomorrow, something about a headache. 

Otabek lets him go without an argument, when he pulls away, because Otabek is a good friend and always has been.  Otabek has always known when Yuri needed to be alone and when he didn't need to be alone, and right now Otabek knows it is the latter, but also knows that he is very much the wrong person to offer comfort.  Otabek's eyes look so sad.  

Yuri wants to scream.

 

_Y: baba_

 

Yuri texts, when he crawls under the futon covers. He doesn’t know what else to say. He feels like a little kid. He wants someone to make him tea that he can sip through a lump of raspberry jam, like grandpa used to let him do when he was small and coming down with a cold.  The steam sweating out the fever, the lump of fruit preserves in his mouth, served off of that tiny silver spoon, making the black tea sweet and thick.  He wants to be home.  He blinks at his phone, watches the screen waver in the dark.  He doesn’t know what to say, but it’s okay because she already knows what he means.

 

_M: oh yura_

_M: sweetie_

_M: im so sorry_

She calls him, whispers _Yura, Yura, Yura_ and then _Yurochka, sweet Yurochka_  until he falls asleep or passes out.

Yuri dreams of a story his grandpa use to tell him when he was little, about a maiden made from snow, with eyes like forget-me-nots, lips and cheeks as red as roses, and long blonde hair like rivers of gold.  She was the daughter of Spring and Father Christmas, and born from a drift of snow.  Like all children, she desperately wanted companionship, and made friends with the mortals of the village, played with them, learned from them.  When she grew up she was entranced by a shepherd named Lel, whose music enticed all the girls.  Only, despite her attraction to him, she was dull compared to the others and he did not love her. Even her beauty couldn't make up for the fact that she didn't know how to love.

She wanted to love so desperately that she asked her mother for help, and her mother relented and gave the girl a garland that granted her the capacity to feel love. And so the Snow Maiden loved.  Properly and fully, not just attraction or friendship, but deep and true love.  And she confessed her love but, of course, love warms up the heart and she was made of snow, so she melted away. 

Ice and snow can't stand heat, and love, _(when Yuri wakes up his phone battery is dead and Otabek's futon hasn't been slept in)_ , love is always a demise, in one way or another.


End file.
